


when the moonlight grows clear and pearly

by kassian



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Human AU, M/M, One Shot, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 22:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7072888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kassian/pseuds/kassian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She calls for him only in the dead of night, when he is wreathed in thick, silk blankets and his eyes are blurred and weak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the moonlight grows clear and pearly

She calls for him only in the dead of night, when he is wreathed in thick, silk blankets and his eyes are blurred and weak.

He imagines her lovely appearance as her crystal voice sings its lonely ballad; he thinks of her arresting green eyes and her flushed face framed with soft, hazel-brown hair.

And when the moonlight grows clear and pearly, she draws him out of bed, her ghostly figure shimmering when they promenade.

He lets her take him wherever she wishes, and gives her all he has—his mind, his body, and his soul.

She receives him with ready hands, and leads him to the places where they used to go.

(There is the bridge where they used to hold secret rendezvous. 

There is the roof where they used to watch the sun dip and rise.

There is the lake where they used to write together, huddled in swathes of coats as they clutched weathered notebooks and inky pens.)

He trembles whenever she leads him to these places, and like the walking paradox she is, all she does is watch wordlessly.

All he knows is fear. 

Their meetings always end up with him stumbling back home with cold tears frozen on his cheeks, her voice a faint echo in the back of his head.

{...}

When Vash finds him, he gives him a faint ghost of what she gave to him.

He presents him with kisses and steaming mugs of coffee and healing (and love).

Her face fades away from his mind whenever he’s with him, and all he can do is stare helplessly into whirlpools of beautifully wonderful green.

One night he’s burrowed into his side, and Roderich doesn’t hear her usual songs. She doesn’t call for him or takes him to their secret meeting places.

He doesn’t notice her smoking glower on Vash’s back.

And, as a result, he’s not sure how it happens.

Vash stops, one day.

Leaves.

Roderich watches him go. He doesn’t notice the tremble in his fingers, the stutter in his step. All he sees is another heart going away.

With his departure, she comes back.

{...}

When he plays his violin, he thinks of her. (Her warm smile. Her fiery passion.) When his bow glides down vibrating strings, he thinks of her beautiful, daring spirit. (Her bright, lively eyes. Her fast heart.) When he hears the high pitch of the thinnest cord, he thinks of her wonderful laugh. (Her giggles like bells, her smiles like flames.) When he listens to the music he creates, he thinks of her soul. (Her.)

She doesn’t go away and he’s not sure whether to laugh or cry or scream or maybe do all three at once.

{...}

One day somebody finds him on the roof.

“Somebody” isn’t Vash. 

He’s someone from a world ago, someone from the foggy memory that was a decade ago (or maybe yesterday…?), and Roderich can’t help but stare at him, marvel at how much he’s changed.

His copper eyes are bright with fear and there’s a quiver in his coarse voice.

Why is he scared…?

He watches dully as Gilbert’s pale, pale hands are reaching out for… him, and suddenly Roderich feels something splinter in his heart when the snowy white hand curls into a fist in his shirt and brings him back from the edge of the roof, back from the railing of the bridge, back from the verge of the lake.

Each time he brings him back, each time Gilbert saves him, the youth brings him close to his heart, howling horribly—“You have to stop doing this, please; I love you, I love you, I love you”—and every time he does, Roderich holds him too but can’t stop hearing her voice in his head, over and over and over—

And he can see her, out of the corner of his eye.

She’s wearing the same dress she had on the day she died, although it isn’t stained, and it’s free of blood.

Her face, for once, isn’t screwed up tight in hatred or anger, and her gaze isn’t loathing… For once, she seems content.

Elizaveta watches them, but does nothing. 

She does not touch Gilbert, or him.

She lets them be.


End file.
